Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family's Correspondence from Poland

Description

Author Richard S. Hollander was devastated when his parents were killed in an automobile accident in 1986. While rummaging through their attic, he discovered letters from a family he never knew - his father's mother, three sisters, and their husbands and children. The letters, neatly stacked in a briefcase, were written from Krakow, Poland, between 1939 and 1942. They depict day-to-day life under the most extraordinary pain and stress. At the same time, Richard's father, Joseph Hollander, was fighting the United States government to avoid deportation and death. Richard was astounded to learn that his father saved the lives of many Polish Jews, but - despite heroic efforts - could not save his family.

Christopher Browning is the author of seven books on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, including The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (with contributions from Jurgen Matthaus) in 2004 and Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland in1992. Both of these books received the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category. With Cambridge University Press he has published The Path to Genocide (1992) and Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (2000). Christopher Browning received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington for 25 years, before moving in 1999 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History. He has delivered the George Macauley Trevelyan Lectures in at Cambridge University (1999) and the George Mosse Lectures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2002). He has been an expert witness at various trials of accused Nazi criminals in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as in the 'Holocaust denial' trials of Ernst Zundel in Toronto (1988) and Irving vs. Lipstadt in London (2000). Richard S. Hollander is the son of Joseph A. Hollander. Joseph Hollander's mother, three sisters, their spouses, and children wrote the poignant and powerful letters from Krakow, Poland (1939-1942) that comprise the bulk of the book. Following the deaths of Joseph Hollander and his wife, Vita Hollander, in an automobile accident in 1986, Richard Hollander discovered the letters in a briefcase in the attic. According to Holocaust scholars, the letters are 'an historic treasure'. This discovery inspired the publication of the letters written by his father's family trapped in Nazi-occupied Poland. It also compelled Richard Hollander to research his father's life and struggle to gain entry into the United States (1939-1940) and subsequent return to Europe (1945) in the U.S. Army, and his search for his missing relatives. Richard Hollander was raised in suburban New York. He has an undergraduate degree in political science from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; a masters degere in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; and a masters of liberal arts degree from Johns Hopkins. Mr Hollander was a reporter and columnist on two daily newspapers, The Evening News in Newsburgh, New York and The Baltimore News American. Most of his journalism career was as a reporter for WBAL-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, where he specialized in covering politics and government. Presently, Mr. Hollander is president of Millbrook Communications in Baltimore, Maryland, an advertising and marketing firm representing Maryland Public Television and a wide variety of professional sports teams. Mr Hollander has taught journalism at the University of Baltimore and Goucher College in Towson, Maryland. He worked in Congress for Rep. John G. Dow (D-NY) as press secretary and speech writer. Mr Hollander is the author of Video Democracy (1986), which was a projection of the impact of interactive technology on American politics. In the community. Mr Hollander served for

STARRED REVIEW "Sustained personal documentation from those who lived and died in the Holocaust is rare. That makes this collection of letters a precious gift to historians." Publisher's Weekly "Browning and Nechama Tec offer a historical context, and Hollander tells how his family found strength through letters. This is an important human and literary document of a family facing the Holocaust." Booklist